Home Visit Program Produces Results by Karen Matthews

Posted on April 6th, 2012.

We know that a significant portion of premature births come from teen pregnancies. We also know that one of the best ways to give an infant a good nutritional start in life is to breastfeed. A teen mom in the last trimester of her pregnancy signed up for our home visitation program. Our social worker feared a premature birth (because the mom had not had received effective prenatal care prior to our visits). During the visitation program, the teen mom decided she wanted to breastfeed her baby. We have been able to support her decision by providing breastfeeding classes and helping her work with a lactation specialist. In spite of her baby girl being born prematurely, she is a very resilient mother, is breastfeeding on schedule, and her baby made such good progress that the doctors expect to discharge her much earlier than expected. Throughout all of this, the mother has been able to pump 8 -12 bottles per day. This is just one of many examples how one-on-one mentoring by the social workers in our home visitation program are changing lives in the Delta.